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The Social Skills Lab
The Social Skills Lab
TSSL - Episode 6 - Being Non-Judgemental And What Is Cool?
In this episode we talk about more ideas on how to put a good vibe when you are socializing. Specifically how to be more non-judgmental and why that is a better way to communicate with others and also what it means to be cool. Also what isn't cool and also talk about a lot of other tips that will help you. I also mention a video I saw recently that will really help you with reading body language. It's from Marcus Oakey and his channel - YourCharismaCoach, check out his stuff it's great!
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Thank you!! - Nathan. : D
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome back to episode number six of the social skills lab. I'm your host, Nathan Ament. See last week, we talked about saying hello, and exchanging contact information. Before we get into that, a couple things I want to talk about. Since we are still in a pandemic, I noticed something about people wearing masks. It's actually really hard to hear people talk with the mask on. And I don't know if everybody realizes this because I, I hear a lot of people not speaking up, or they'll be I don't know, they're just basically muffled. So try to speak up a little bit or an NT or enunciate. See, I can't even enunciate without a mass, so enunciate your words better. Just because it makes so people can actually hear you through a mask. I was also looking over some of the older episodes. And I noticed there's a lot of stuff that I wanted to talk about that I that I missed. Well, first of all, I saw this video the other night on this channel called your charisma coach by Marcus okie put a link to it in the in the show description. But he, he does a interview with this guy named Igor, lead loski, something like something like that. But this guy's like a hypnotist. And this guy has a very keen ability to read people, he can read people's body language really well. And we had talked about body language a little bit on one of the previous episodes, but this on this guy goes into some pretty good depth on it. So I'll send you a link on it. One of the most important reasons that you want to learn a lot about body language is not only so you can present yourself a lot better when you're communicating with people. But also so you can read their body language, because they're going to give you constant feedback. So you can tell if the conversation is going really well. Or if you could tell if or you can observe if their eyes are starting to glaze over, like you're starting to, you can see if you can, you can tell if the topic you're talking about isn't very interesting, or the conversations not going well, it's really important to read if they are enjoying the conversation that you that you have begun. And this will give you several options, just know that you always have options. The more options you have, the more options you recognize, the more effective you can be just in general at life. Option one is to change the subject, just just start talking about something else or change up gears. The other option would be to may put more energy into what you're talking about. Maybe you're starting to get a little monotone or something like that. Another option too is just to wrap it up. Just say hey, you know it's nice talking to you, I got to get going. So always have that little parachute. So anytime you get in a conversation know that, you know, you can always get out of a conversation at any time. Just Just let them know like, Oh yeah, it was nice talking to you. I got to get going, or something to that effect. Another thing that I would I wanted to mention too, as we talked about it was I think it was in the same episode is body language. But the episode where we're talking about vocal tonality is really important to think about is just to put it bluntly, you really don't want to be monotone when you're talking to someone, some ways to the ways that people talk who are very, like, have very colorful, vibrant, speaking ability. what they'll do is they'll change the pitch of their voice. Like sometimes we'll talk really low, and then sometimes we'll talk really high. So your pitch of your of your voice will vary throughout your your conversation. Also you can change the rate of your of your speaking pattern like sometimes You'll put pauses in between words. Yeah, I guess create tension when you're talking a little bit good. That way, oh, in anticipation, that's the word I'm looking for. So put maybe just, you know, you could talk real fast sometimes, or sometimes, you might just talk a little slower. And then also the volume. So you can like, I don't know, the volume, just vary the volume of how you're speaking, maybe sometimes just talk a little quieter, and then sometimes you talk really loud. So those three things, you can change the pitch, the volume, and the rate, the way you speak. And that doing those three things will they'll make your, the way you speak, or what you're talking about much more interesting. So make sure you very pay attention to those things, and that you work on those as well. One thing about that, too, is, as far as the pitch, something some people will do sometimes is they'll put like, an upward inflection on the very last word that of a sentence, like just like that. There. And it's sometimes it sounds like you're not really sure about sure of what you're talking about. So some people will do that a lot. Just try not to do it so much upward inflection on the very last word of a sentence will, I don't know, I guess the best way to describe it is you'll kind of lose. If you do it a lot. It kind of just takes away from your credibility, or there's something like that. So another thing that we talked about was what to talk about. And I didn't mention that some things that you might want to avoid talking about our topics that are either gross, or have our negative, or just I don't know, either, they make you mad. So you start slowly, getting more angry as you talk makes you sound a little aggro, or just things that are negative. Talking about like the murder rate or something like that. I'm kind of hard pressed to think of a topic right now that's really negative right now. But there's a billion of them. So try to avoid talking about things that are negative or that are gross, you don't want to be talking about how you had like, surgery on your toe, and it was spilling pouring pus everywhere or something like that. And these are just general rules, sometimes it's fine to talk about that stuff. Sometimes it just depends who you're talking to. But just as a general rule, it's kind of good to avoid talking about negative things and things that are gross. Okay, so jumping back to last week, we talked about just the specifics on saying hello, I wanted to mention that. Like sometimes if I'm at a bar, or a venue, and I'm kind of close to someone, and I'm like this talk to this person, or I just want to start a conversation with someone, but they are facing away from me. Sometimes, instead of walking all the way around, to get in front of them, all this kind of reach up and tap them on the shoulder like this, two fingers or one finger reach up and just tap tap, either then on the shoulder or like the upper arm. It's actually one of the very, at least in the United States, it's one of the very few ways that socially acceptable to physically contact someone, like you don't want to tap him on the head or tap them on the butt. But tapping someone on the shoulder as far as the dozens or 100 times I've done it, it's perfectly fine. They'll just turn around go, Hey, what's up, I'm like, Hey, how's it going? Something like that. But that's just a small thing I thought I'd mentioned. So this week, we're going to talk about being non judgmental, and what it means to be cool. Okay, so let's talk about what it means to be non judgmental. So being non judgmental has a lot to do with your ego. And for me, personally, I've been really focused on shrinking my ego, like my, one of my lifelong goals is to completely shrink my ego. I think one of the main reasons is, if you completely shrink your Well, this is I kind of learned this from like Eastern philosophy, but like, complete enlightenment, like when someone achieves enlightenment, for one, they're pretty happy. And I want to be I want to be more happy. I guess that's kind of part of being ego, the desire to want things. So it's kind of a conundrum to want to be happy. You kind of just are supposed to, I guess you kind of just achieve happiness when you let go of wanting stuff, but Ego is kind of wrapped up in that. I don't know, being judgmental has a lot to do with your ego. I just remember one time I was driving, and this was after I started, like thinking about the ego. And I saw this young kid, he was walking down the street, and he had his pants, there were sagging down, like below his butt. And I remember just thinking, what a douchebag. And I instantly thought, holy cow, I just totally judged the f out of that guy. And I was like, you know, I don't want to be like that. I don't want to do that. I remember it. And I think I remember it mostly because I'm like, Oh, I really recognize how quickly I can judge someone. And when you're judging, and when you just have this general way about you that you you quickly judge people, it's just not good for like, putting out a good vibe. And so when you're talking to someone, I've noticed, a lot of times when I'm talking to someone, sometimes people just quickly open up to me real quick, and they'll start telling me stuff that's like, very personal. And I think that's, I think, possibly one of the reasons why they'll do that is because I kind of put off a sense that I'm not going to judge them. So if you want to have like good deep conversations with people relatively quickly, it's really good idea to just develop a quality within you of being a non judgmental person. And I'm not really sure the best way to book going, the best way to go about that. Maybe more meditation, because I know meditation can help you a lot with your eat, but with shrinking your ego. And also just try to recognize when you do it. And if you do it to someone to say Oh, I'm sorry, I was being really judgy. So just getting the sense, just get in the habit of being aware of being judgmental. Also, like maybe, and maybe something along those lines would be also gossiping, like you don't want to talk crap about other people. If you're going to talk about other people try to always just talk about the positive things. Avoid talking about the negative stuff, like I heard, I heard this a while back was a quick way to really improve your life is to not talk about the things you don't want, start talking about, start to talk about the things that you do want. When I first heard that, I'm like, that sounds really difficult because I constantly, I don't know, I guess wasn't constant. But I would sometimes complain about staff or talking about things that are like wrong with the world. And then I was like, Okay, I'm going to really do my best to just talk about things that I like, and things that are going well. And it can really change your mindset real quick if you if you really pay attention doing that. Another thing about being judgmental. So I read this thing online, a couple days ago, it said something like, if some if there's something that someone else enjoys doing, or something someone else likes, there's no reason for you to, to be upset or angry about it. It will, in fact, you'll be a lot happier if you don't let stuff like that bother you. And it's such a simple statement. But when you really think about it, like, I still notice that I do this. So this is something that I really try to work on is like if there's like a band, or some music group, like if, like, let's say Kpop I'm really not a fan of Kpop. And let's just say like, Oh, it's so dumb that so many people listen to kpop. Like, if they like it, there's no reason for me to to crap all over it, they should, I should just be happy that they like it or just have no opinion. So I mean, that can manifest itself in so many ways. So just think about that. That's, I thought that was a really good advice to just let other people enjoy what they like, as long as it's not affecting you. Like who cares? I mean, everyone likes different stuff. So that's definitely something that would fall in under the guise of being judgmental. So another thing I want to talk about this week is the concept of being cool. I remember as you know, kid, junior high high school, I had this idea of what cool was and as I've gotten older my idea of what cool is is completely changed completely changed. And I don't even know if I could really describe it well the way I used to look at it. I mean, I guess it's just like had a had a nice car. nice clothes popular. And I guess I don't know, I didn't really have a really good description of what cool is it basically was something that I wasn't I don't really consider myself as being very cool when I was younger. And not that I consider myself being like really cool now but I definitely am. I don't know a lot of my friends are really cool and they like to hang out with me. So maybe maybe that's a good description of Maybe I'm on the right track. So. So I think the way I would describe being cool now, in its simplest terms, is just having good character and being a mature person. And that's pretty much it. I mean, and maybe like a renaissance man to, like, has ability to, you know, be comfortable in their own skin, they're very relaxed, even when things get a little hairy, funny, and, you know, just as comfortable in situations and enjoys life. And another huge way to describe it would be to, like, not take life so seriously and not take themselves. So seriously. That was a really big one for me. I remember I just kind of it's a little too serious all the time. One thing I did for that was I started when I signed up for some improv classes. And in these classes, you're basically going to be super silly, and act completely dumb. And I don't know, you just play these games to like, improv games. And I was like, wow, this is, this is a great, this was a great way to like, make me not, I'm going to loosen up a little bit, you know, just relax and just enjoy the moment be in the moment. I think that's another good description, someone who just isn't so much in their head. And there's more in the moment. I think, I don't know, I made a list here of stuff that is not cool. So that's also a good way to describe what's cool is by knowing what isn't cool, so let's, let's take a look at this list here. impatient. So these are things that are not cool. being impatient. being negative, whining, immature, needy, being needy, likes to argue, holds grudges, doesn't forgive people for stuff. Letters, like just dumped trash everywhere, super serious all the time. Like you've seen on online too, there's been a lot of people they call them Karen's, I guess, ladies or guys that are like, you know, really mean to like, waitresses and stuff like that, or, or whatever. I also put in decisiveness. And I noticed, this is a good one. So I was at the bar with my friend. And he was dating this girl in the bar was packed. It was like a real nice new bar, like a real hipster bar. And the place was packed. We get, we wait for our drinks for like, I mean, just to order a drink. It took about five minutes to until the bartender came over. I was like, Alright, guys, what do you guys want? And I was like, I'll take I don't remember I said, like old fashion or something like that. And then my buddy ordered his drink. And his his, his date? She was like, um, I don't know, how about can you recommend any? I don't know. She said something like, I don't know, basically, she had five minutes to, to come up with a drink. And now this bartender was like, God. And I've seen people do this a lot, like so if you're going to go order something, just know what you're going to order, you know, quit wasting people's times. And that, that's just a small glimpse of being indecisive. That can happen a lot of ways, but just know what you want. And don't waste people's times make a decision, even if it's a bad decision, make a decision. And if you make a bad decision, say, Well, that was a dumb that that wasn't a good idea, or something like that own up to it. I mean, there's no, it's really not a big deal to make bad decisions. We make decisions all the time. Leadership is cool. So someone that takes the lead. Because if you have three people that go out and no one's making a decision, you're kind of standing there. aimless, so someone's got to take the lead. And, and I've noticed that people who are cool often are comfortable taking the lead on things. Also, also make things easier for people. Like so. Like I just said, you know, being decisive, makes things easier for people. I went out with some friends. We were in San Francisco, they got us a room. So we pulled to the hotel, and they said parking is $60. And it's like holy cow that's in some places. That's enough for a room. So it's like, and mean, basically in San Francisco, if you want to park your car at a hotel, a lot of times it'll be very, very expensive. But there was really not any parking anywhere. And I could tell that they weren't sure. Should we leave? Should we go try to find parking? I was like, Oh, no, I got it. I'll just pay for it. And I mean, 60 bucks is a lot but at the same time, you know, we're there. It's like Friday. We're gonna have a good time. I don't want to waste time trying to find parking. So I was like, No, no big deal. Let's just pay for it here. I got I got it. So stuff like that just make things easier for people. It really It goes a long way. And you know, people don't always notice it or whatever, but just be in the habit, like, you know, if you're gonna have to like run errands, and your friends gonna pick you up, don't like have them run, run errands with you, unless they want to go. But you know, try to take care of all your stuff that you have to take care of before you go out. Or, you know, you see someone carrying something and they're having trouble carrying it, help them carry it or something. I don't know, this can happen in so many ways, but just make things help other people with stuff be more helpful. That's always very cool. I think. Something else too, that isn't, I would consider not being cool is trying to manipulate people. Like one way is saying should like, Oh, you should have done that. Or, I mean, not even necessarily guilt tripping them. But guilt tripping people is also not a good thing to do to people. That's not very cool. I mean, it's basically just like, it's, it's an immature thing to do. So like when you're when you what you want to do is be a mature person. So mature person is okay with saying no. And okay with hearing No, like, they don't get upset, they don't get like knocked off their center. So someone that's like cool is like, pretty easy going. Like, let's say, you get cut off on the freeway. And you know, there's people that get road rage, road rage, not cool. I used to actually get road rage a lot. When I was first starting this new job where I was driving about two hours a day around Sacramento, people in California, I've noticed they don't drive very well. They'll drive either too fast, or they'll drive too slow. Basically anything that's not I'm not happy with if they're not driving my speed, I was getting pissed off. And so I noticed I'm like, Man, this is really getting me angry. I don't know what to do about this. So I came up with the idea that I'm going to drive in the slow lane for one month. And, you know, I pretty much did it. If someone was going like 50 miles an hour, I would go around them. But if they're going like 65, which is what people drive in the slow lane around here. Yeah, I would just stay in the slow lane for a whole month. And at first. And when I see at first I mean for like the first hour, it was really, really difficult. I was really frustrated. But then I just learned to like, Okay, I'm just not going to tailgate, I'm going to kick back, you know, but 100 feet. And I noticed that after a while I didn't even notice that I was driving slow. It's weird. It's like the theory of relativity, like after a while just like became normal. And I pretty much got over my road rage. And I've told this to people, like if someone says, I remember talking to this lady, she said, she gets road rage all the time. And I said, Oh, you know what I did that worked for that really well. She's like, oh, what I was like, I just drove in the slow lane for a month. And she's like, Oh, I can't do that. And I'm like, Okay, well just enjoy your Enjoy your road rage. Like, I don't know, people just don't like to take this, they can't imagine changing their habit and something that so simple as that. So that's another thing too, is about being cool. I've noticed as being more patient patients, they say patience is a virtue. And it's something that everyone, including myself especially needs to work on a lot. Still. impatience is basically being someone who's immature, that's an immature quality. So I mean, I think just in general, the whole concept of having really high character is a really cool, just you become a cool person, when you just cultivate all the qualities of high character. And there's like, I don't know, Google it, there's, there's like 100 different qualities. But you know, we'll talk about some of that stuff later. But all this stuff, in general, just help you communicate better, you'll start putting off a better vibe when you talk to people. So I mean, all this stuff. It's kinda like a holistic approach to to communication skills, communication skills, if you haven't figured it out by now, it's not just words. It's how you how you are as a person. So that's why I really tried to talk about everything that I've learned, that I've noticed, has helped me be a better communicator, and has improved my social skills a lot. And I hope you're starting to figure that out that we're definitely gonna be talking about all kinds of different areas, in social skills, because I don't know, I guess just social skills is is basically who you are as a person in general. You're going to want to work on yourself a lot in every aspect. We're going to take a multifaceted, multifaceted approach to your social skills. And I really, really think it's going to help you a lot if you if you take these to heart, and that's one time this one time I went to a wedding with my friend and his brother was there. His brother was a little older than us and This guy, I remember thinking, Man, this guy was really cool. And I was a lot younger, but I don't know, I guess he had a lot of challenges and difficulties over a couple years. And he kind of became like, kind of aggro, aggro being like a, you know, kind of aggressive style person. And so I remember we were talking in the car, we were, I don't know, we just got on this topic. I think it was about maybe, religion or something like that, which, you know, a lot of people say you shouldn't talk about religion. I do it sometimes. And usually, it goes really well. But this time, this guy, just basically, he really liked to argue, and he can go on kind of a rant for about, he went on a rant for about 10 minutes. And I was like, holy cow, this guy's just wants to be right. I think that's a real important thing to think about is, you're not always going to be right, no matter how smart you are. Even, I want you to think back to like, okay, all the times I've gotten into an argument or disagreed with someone in the last year, like, How many times did that happen? And how many times did I think I was right? And how many times, quote, unquote, was I was sure that I was right, and that they were wrong? Well, I'm going to tell you, if you were right, even 60% of the time, you were probably a genius, because there's no way that you can be right 95% of the time. And that's probably what you think you're like, oh is probably right, at least 90 95% of the time, not even close. There's no way. And I've noticed as to that like holy cow. In the last month, I've said things that were just like, Well, I was wrong. I was wrong. I'm becoming more and more comfortable admitting I was wrong. Like, I'll just joke around with someone, like if we look up a fact that I pretty sure was right. And it turns out, I was wrong. We'll just joke around. I'm like, wow, that's like the first time I was wrong this year, or something like that. To me, it's really not a big deal. And I think when people want to be right, that really ties back in with their ego. And so just know that you are, there's no way you're right, over 90% of the time, you're gonna be wrong, and a significant amount of time, and it's nowhere close to what you actually think it is. So feeling like you're always right, that's definitely not cool, be more comfortable with being wrong. And like not arguing with people. Even if you win an argument, just know that you're gonna probably hurt your connection with the person or hurt your vibe. So what's the ultimate goal, the ultimate goal is to be happy and have fun, right? So just try to avoid arguing with people like you can disagree with people and stuff. And, you know, if it's like a really good friend of yours, have a little challenging discussion or debate about stuff like that, but in like in general, probably want to avoid that stuff. So I think that's gonna be all for this week. Next week, we're going to be talking about the idea of what it means to be funny. And also we're going to talk a little bit about personal boundary. It's like a psychological concept that I learned about and it's been very useful. So have a great week, everyone. I hope you are doing well and have fun. Don't take your self too seriously. And I'll talk to you next week.